Coconut Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of those recipes that is a classic just as it is and, while it’s fun to tweak it every once in a while for variety, I find that I always go back to the original. Of course, that was before I tried playing around with coconut in my banana bread. I think I have a new “basic” now.

Coconut is a great inclusion in breads because it is so versatile and adds a great flavor. Shredded coconut contributes a nice texture to the bread and adds some moisture. Unlike other nut additions, coconut seems to blend better into a loaf and seem more like a part of the bread, rather than an “add-in.” Coconut milk is another way to add coconut flavor to a recipe. The flavor of it is much milder than that of shredded coconut, but it has a unique richness that carries through to the finished product. I used both types of coconut in this bread. As a result, the loaf was very moist, with a fantastic flavor and texture. The coconut breaks up the bread a little bit, making it a bit more tender than many banana breads.

Coconut and banana seem to complement each other well and, while they often appear in a sort of “tropical” pairing (cocktails, etc.), I don’t think that this bread has a tropical feel to it at all. It just tastes well put together, like it was meant to me – hence my description of it as a new basic banana bread recipe. I also like the fact that this bread comes together very quickly and dosn’t require the use of an electric mixer.

I used low fat coconut milk and it worked out very well here. You can use the full fat variety or, if you really don’t have any on hand, you can try substituting regular milk or buttermilk. Plain milk or buttermilk will give you a slightly different finished flavor, but both will still work out in the recipe.

Preheat oven 350F and lightly grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar and eggs until well combined, then whisk in the mashed banana, coconut milk, butter and vanilla extract. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined, making sure no streaks of flour remain. Stir in shredded coconut and pour batter out into prepared baking pan.
Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with only a few moist crumbs attached.
Turn loaf out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Jake – You can use sweetened or unsweetened. Both will work. I used sweetened, since it’s much more readily available to me and I tend to always have some on hand.
You can definitely toast the coconut before mixing it in. Just make sure to cool it completely before stirring it into the batter.

Nicole, mine is baking in the oven as I write this comment. I can’t wait to hear how it goes over with my hair stylist. I like to bake her a little something when I visit. I added another ingredient–not sure how it will go over but I think blueberries and bananas pair well and I would think blueberries and coconut would too (never tried it that I remember!). We have some awesome fresh blueberries right now and I couldn’t resist trying a cup or so in the bread. I guess I won’t know for another month! Thanks for a great recipe!!

I made this recipe this past weekend for a get-together with my college girlfriends. It was fantastic! One of them said, “I don’t typically like banana bread, but this is really good. Can I take some home?” I reluctantly let her have some, but was sad to know that there was none left for me to take home!! Time to make another loaf.

I made this recipe this past weekend for a get-together with my college girlfriends. It was fantastic! One of them said, “I don’t typically like banana bread, but this is really good. Can I take some home?” I reluctantly let her have some, but was sad to know that there was none left for me to take home!! Time to make another loaf.

This was wonderful. The coconut was a little more mild than I expected, probably due to the amount of time i had a bag of unopened shredded coconut lying around. I’ll have to try it with fresher bag next time. Still, a perfect pairing for coffee any time of the day.

I would like to make this a coconut-pineapple-banana bread.
I would do this by using 1/4 cup each of pineapple juice
and coconut milk. I would also add two 8-oz. cans of pineapple tidbits (don’t like the texture of crushed pineapple). Would this create problems with the quick bread by doing this variation? I realize that the canned pineapple would be a problem because of how moist it is, but I would drain the excess liquid over a colander and then pat the pineapple dry between two sheets of paper towel. My biggest concern is that by adding pineapple it will make the quick bread too mushy. Feedback on this would be much appreciated.

While I think this “bread” looks gorgeous, it doesn’t looklike much of a bread to me – according to the ingredients I would have thought of it as a cake.
Maybe it’s because I’m from Scandinavia and that we have quite a different bread tradition than e.g. USA (Our primary ingredint is rye in our everyday bread).
Actually, we have a cake with almost the exact same amount pr/ingredient which we call a “sandkage” (or, sand-cake if you were to translate the name).
What I actually wanted to hear – could you leave out the banana, and how should the receipe be altered additionally?